Thursday, March 11, 2010

I have a long family and personal history in the textile arts. My mother learned a great deal from my paternal grandmother on the subject, and has graciously passed her knowledge and passion on to me. I have been sewing and crocheting for approximately thirteen years (since I was about ten or so), and for most of that time I have used acrylic yarns. Acrylic is generally inexpensive, easy to work with, widely available, easy-care, and comes in a huge variety of colors and textures. Since my sheep production course last year, though, I have fallen in love with wool. Sheep are fantastic creatures, with the ability to transform non-arable land into meat and fiber. Wool tends to be more expensive than synthetics, but I think the extra cost is well worth the durability of the fiber and the feel of the finished product. Wool is also warmer than synthetic fibers, hairs, or cotton, since the fiber has a hollow core. Not only is wool fantastic, lamb is pretty darn tasty, too. Needless to say, I love those fuzzy little buggers.

Since I have fallen in love with wool yarns, I have purchased several different types. My first forays into the world of wool yarns were in a couple of local shops. While I loved the experience of shopping for the yarn, I feel the local shops were mostly overpriced for the quality they offered. Really nice fibers like merino wool and alpaca were just out of the question. I still have those yarns sitting around waiting to be used, and maybe someday I'll finally figure out what to do with them. Anyhow, within the last year or so I have discovered KnitPicks.

My largest current project is in KnitPicks' Wool of the Andes worsted weight yarn. Wool of the Andes is made of 100% Peruvian Highland wool, and is fairly heavy. My colors on this project are Spruce (teal) and Oyster (cream/eggshell). I'll talk more about that in a later post, though. I'm also using KnitPicks Merino Style in Storm as the blue in the scarf below, and Wool of the Andes in Daffodil as the yellow accent stripes. All four colors that I have of Wool of the Andes are in the floor in front of my yarn basket below. (I also purchased some in Sapphire Heather- which is gorgeous)

If you look closely, you'll see a little doodad on that blue and yellow scarf. Well, that's my butterfly fairy. She helps me keep projects from unraveling when I'm not working on them. If you're like me and can't help but have half a dozen projects going at once, little hair clips and the like are indispensable for keeping stitches, well, stitched. It's a bonus that she's cute and sparkly. :)

I've also decided to finish off some of my old acrylic baby yarn by making a couple of baby blankets. I have two giant balls of mint green, and one of white. One of these projects will be a super-large granny square, and the other is my first ever ripple! One of these will go to my niece, who is due in July. The other will go to my sister-in-law, since I just learned she's incubating the spawn of Satan- er, my brother.

About Me

My little blog is mostly about my adventures in crochet. I hope that sharing my work with others will motivate me to finish my projects more quickly, and I may even include some non-textile projects I'm working on. :)